Thermal-hydraulic characteristics of nanofluid flow in corrugated ducts

Abstract

This study aims are to present effects of periodic corrugations in rectangular ducts on the thermal-hydraulic behaviors of nanofluids. The applied corrugations were rectangular cavities with a constant cavity length. In this regard, three various dimensionless cavity shaped corrugation widths such as S/H = 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3 were investigated. Computations were carried out at different Reynolds numbers in the range of 500≤Re≤2000. Alternatively, for further improvement of thermal characteristics, effects of an alumina–water nanofluid flow on the aforementioned corrugated ducts were investigated using the constant nanoparticle size dp = 25 nm and various nanoparticle volume concentrations in the range of 1%≤ Φ ≤8%. The governing equations were solved numerically by means of the finite volume method. The obtained results revealed that application of periodic corrugations in ducts develops the turbulent flow all over the duct, which results in the higher flow mixing and thermal efficiency compared with the plain duct. Furthermore, rates of turbulence intensity and flow mixing change as a function of S/H. In addition, it was demonstrated that application of alumina–water flow in such corrugated ducts enhances the rate of heat transfer and thermal efficiency index compared with water flow. It is hoped that the obtained results arouse interest for thermal designer.